


Attraction to Discourse

by virtuoso



Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-21
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:52:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1995741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/virtuoso/pseuds/virtuoso
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A timeline.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Attraction to Discourse

**Author's Note:**

> Not written well at all but kept in drafts for too long.

Attraction is symbiotic. It’s between two people. It’s beautiful. It’s a miracle. It’s designed.

  
Gerard never got his head around the concept of having another being in his life he wasn’t born to unconditionally ‘love’. Nothing ever felt like what people would say, that two lovers fit each other just as puzzle pieces would. He thought that if you pushed any two pieces well enough they’d fit perfectly.

  
At 17, his mother had told him that his step-dad was her ‘true soul mate’. Her criteria was ‘to love and be loved’.

  
At 19, he met a girl. She would sit with her legs spread and her back arched comfortably on the chair. He loved the way she didn’t care for anyone or anything. She strolled through the world like she owned the damn place.

  
They ended up going out to abandoned cinemas, graveyards, and countless rooftops with few words and more hands exchanged. After a while, she got bored of seeing him and that was it. He couldn’t say he cared because he didn’t.

  
At 21, he had a job working in a lamp shop right below his apartment. The shop didn’t have many sales but it got profit. The lamps were antique, one of a kind, and Gerard was entrusted to look after them while the boss was taking a 360 turn around the world. Mr Kato was in his mid-thirties and living the high life.

  
A year and a half later, he was the boss because Mr Kato never returned and had forged documents giving Gerard the responsibility. He didn’t get angry, he kind of just shrugged his shoulders and figured he could afford to keep his apartment right above the shop.

  
Mr Kato’s wife would come by every few weeks looking for her husband until the applications were shoved in her face. She let him be after spending some time upstairs filling the void her husband left with Gerard. It never really begun and ended quite quickly.

  
At 23, he was drowning in profits ever since he added more goods to the store for the younger audience like an array of horror classics and their merchandise, comic books from his own collection. Basically, most of his stuff he just dragged downstairs. He parted with them quite easily, didn’t believe in the connection between human and materials.

  
A frequent customer was a relatively young man in his mid-twenties. He chewed at his fingernails and had splotches of bad acne scars along his face. Gerard was mesmerised with the way the man had tapped his foot and looked rapidly at everything but Gerard when he purchased his sixth issue of some comic Gerard didn’t care about. He would leave in a hurry but be back on the second last day of each fortnight.

  
Two months later, Gerard was pulling the man to his apartment under the premise he didn’t need to say a word. They lay on his bed staring at the ceiling while Gerard picked up the man’s hands and analysed his fingernails and fingers. That was that, and he was never seen again.

  
At 25, Gerard was at the Summertime park glaring at the leaves above him with one knee pointing towards the sky and one leg resting bare on the wet dew of the nature’s floor. The birds were making him notice their presence. They were beautiful. His toes kneaded into the soil, and his eyes closed, with the cigarette falling out of his mouth. He’d wake up with a burn sore on his clothes and an extinguished fag in the wet grass.

  
The second time he had done this, he had met a homeless cloaked figure carrying a sleeping bag. They had shared the sleeping bag because although it was summer, that night was particularly cool.

Their bodies meshed, and connected for those few hours.  
Gerard loved the way their eyes weren’t quite even in size and colour. The way they talked about belonging to the nature. They met up another five times in those two years until the sixth time, Gerard’s companion wasn’t to be found and a letter was there as a substitute. It was a map to a bridge and an apology. The letter was covered in mud and seemed like it had been there a while.

  
Tears weren’t shed but Gerard’s steps felt heavier.

  
At 27, Gerard accidentally walks into a Goth nightclub. He sits around because the music is great and there are stools for his aching feet. He feels alive but not very motivated to talk to people or figure out the scene. He recognises a few songs from his record collection.

  
Someone sits next to him and asks him why he isn’t dressed for the occasion. He just wandered in by mistake he says. She nods and hands him a drink and asks him if he wants to head back to her place.

  
He pushes out a laugh and grips her laced hands and declines. She scoffs and twists away from him, her shawl smacking him on the arm. He ventures out and that was that. No one’s left an imprint on his life for a while now.

  
At 29, he meets a man in a bookstore searching for a life-changing novel. His body is suffocating in clothing, and he’s wearing sunglasses. Gerard stares at the way his feet shuffle across the carpet like he’s on the verge of collapsing. He’s chewing on his lips as he scans the shelves. His arms don’t sync like they’re supposed to and he himself has forgotten how to swing his arms.

  
They end up with a trolley filled with books and their fingers laced the next time they’re in that store. It’s the first time he’s ever held someone’s hand and not felt uncomfortable. Frank has this theory that he has to let go of the things he adores to appreciate them and integrate them into his life. So instead of forgetting about the book because he can quickly reference it, instead he has to think really hard about how it impacted him.

  
Gerard enjoys listening to Frank ‘s tirades about life. They’re lying on the pavement behind Gerard’s store. Gerard is tracing symbols around Frank’s bellybutton, his shirt is pulled up. Frank’s talking about dishonesty and freedom and how they interlace. He turns to Gerard with a blank expression.  
It was over and that was all.

  
At 31, he meets Frank all over again. This time he’s noticing a stranger on the plane through his peripheral vision who keeps looking at him. He turns around to figure out why they’re intrigued by him and comes face to face with Frank. They’re only an aisle apart.

  
They catch up on the last two years of their lives with Gerard managing the store and viewing a couple of basement gigs here and there and spending a lot of time with his family in Italy after his step-brother’s death. Frank says he’s sorry and he had no idea about Gerard’s family. Gerard finds out that Frank’s been travelling the world, looking for something to make him settle down. He thinks Frank’s philosophy is flawed.

  
They’re both heading back home and Gerard feels an ache in his stomach. Frank asks him if he’s okay but Gerard asks him politely to let him be. The journey continues without another word spoken.

  
At 33, Gerard’s engaged to a woman he hardly knows. He remembers her proposing after they’d been together for a while. All they’d do together was watch television and have sex. It was a repulsing routine and Gerard didn’t break out of it, neither did he encourage it. He doesn’t invite Frank to his wedding but he finds out anyway when Diane puts the notice on the front of the store to tell people the reason it was going to be closed again, for a honeymoon not a funeral.

  
Frank pats Gerard’s back when he hugs him at the reception. He asks him if he knows the mistakes he is making. Gerard nods and thanks him for coming and not to worry about bringing an extra plus one. Gerard remembers Frank telling him that he wasn’t a limited to two relationship kind of guy.

  
At 35, Diane called to ask him if she left her expensive roller-skates at his place. Says she’s calling all her exes to find them and this was not an attempt to get him back after a year and a half. His voice wavers and all the repressed energy floods out. He’s yelling into the receiver and pleading her to tell him why she ever considered he’d be perfect. She tells him she liked the way he looked in a suit and hangs up.

  
He closes the shop and flees to the Summertime park and sees that the newly placed gates around it. It was now private property and frankly, he couldn’t bring himself to think about the laws he was breaking by squeezing himself under the gate. A few scratches and he was safe to stay.

  
He lay down on the spot where he would listen to someone talk about the stars and the constellations. He missed the way someone would caress him and demand his attention without requiring a word from him. He missed the way that he tried to get them to see him the way he saw himself.


End file.
